With nearly half of all suicides in the U.S. military committed with a privately owned firearm, Congress and the Pentagon are moving to implement policies that will discourage at-risk members of the armed forces from retaining their personal weapons.

As suicides continue to rise in 2012, the Defense Department officials are developing a suicide prevention campaign, part of which will encourage friends and family of the potentially suicidal to convince the soldiers to give up their weapons.

The Pentagon’s move would be hugely controversial as some lobbyists may construe it as gun control.

Gun rights groups - along with many service members themselves - are likely to oppose any policy which could seem to limit a citizen’s private ownership of a firearm.